spirituality | dual personalities

Face to the front

by chuckofish

Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.

–Henry Ward Beecher

AMEN!

Henry Ward Beecher (June 24, 1813 – March 8, 1887), you will recall, was quite a fellow.

The son of the celebrated preacher Lyman Beecher and the brother of renowned author Harriet Beecher Stowe, he was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God’s love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His personal life was the thing that soap operas are made of and it is pretty amazing that no one has thought to make a movie about him. (But we do not want this guy to play him!)

He is cool enough, after all, to have a statue in Brooklyn.

Statue of Beecher in Brooklyn, NY

I would like to go see the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn where he was the first pastor. (This would be a fun walking tour.)

57 Orange Street between Henry and Hicks Streets in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood

According to the NHL, it was designed “to accommodate the large crowds that came to hear Beecher and his cohorts. Its simple design reflects the Puritan ethic of plain living and high thinking, and the walls that once rang to the sound of abolition oratory remain largely unchanged.”

Among those who came to hear Beecher were Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. In fact, so many flocked to hear his sermons that special “Beecher boats” were needed to ferry the throngs from Manhattan!

Abraham Lincoln stained glass window by Frederick Stymetz Lamb

“The stained glass windows of Plymouth Church are widely recognized as artistic treasures. The prominent artist Frederick Stymetz Lamb designed, and his brothers of the J. and R. Lamb Studios in Greenwich Village built the nineteen major windows of the Sanctuary, and installed between 1907 and 1909. As planned by then-minister Newell Dwight Hillis, they are unusual in depicting historical, not religious, subjects, taking as their theme the influence of Puritanism (the parent of Congregationalism) on the growth of liberty in the United States-personal liberty, religious liberty and political liberty.”

Well, it’s my kind of place. And as you know, this is how my mind works.

Happy New Year! Thanks for reading our blog in 2013! Keep reading in 2014!

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December 31, 2013

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come*

by chuckofish

The blogosphere, as you can imagine, is all about new year’s resolutions right now. Lists of resolutions: lose weight, quit smoking, save money, get fit, drink less, manage stress. You get the picture. Well, no thanks. January, I will admit, is a good month to get one’s closets in order, to edit one’s stuff, to clean house. But so is every month. You gotta keep up with these things or you can be buried alive.

That goes for a lot of things.

When it comes to New Years Resolutions, we can do better. I suggest we read the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards– all 70 of them.

According to the Jonathan Edwards Center at Yale, the Resolutions were Edwards’ guidelines for self-examination. Puritans set great store by biblical injunctions to submit themselves to divine searching and to monitor their motives and actions. On a community level, congregations were exhorted to practice introspection as a duty of great consequence.

Edwards lays out the Resolutions in a matter-of-fact style, treating them much like scientific principles. Of the seventy resolutions, the first one dated, No. 35, was written on December 18, 1722, when the Diary begins. The last, No. 70, was composed on August 17, 1723.

Let’s resolve to be more self-examining. We can do better.

“There are always two sides to every story, and it is generally wise, and safe, and charitable, to take the best; and yet there is probably no one way in which persons are so liable to be wrong, as in presuming the worst is true, and in forming and expressing their judgement of others, and of their actions, without waiting till all the truth is known.”
― Jonathan Edwards, Charity & Its Fruits

*Alfred Tennyson

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December 2, 2013

You know what time it is

by chuckofish

You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake up from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Romans 13: 11–14

Well, this reading from Sunday morning seems like a timely scripture for this Advent when the country goes en masse on a month-long frenzy of spending and partying which has nothing to do with the real “reason for the season”. I don’t know about you but I’m taping this one to the mirror.

I went to church twice this Sunday, because we had the annual Lessons and Carols service at Grace in the early evening. I got to be one of the readers and read the third lesson. This still makes me so happy. It doesn’t take much, right?

In other news, the boy came over and put up our lights.

Not a great iPhone picture, but you get the idea.

Don’t they look beautiful?

I also got out a lot of Christmas decorations this weekend. And I put away a lot of stuff to make room for the Christmas decorations. I set up my mantle.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus, born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sin release us, let us find our rest in thee.

Let us live honorably.

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November 26, 2013

Ponder anew: counting our blessings

by chuckofish

“Gratitude goes beyond the ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”

― Henri J.M. Nouwen

So November is almost over. Advent starts this Sunday! Have I been successful in my effort to be more consciously thankful? I think so.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things.”

This is so true. And, hey, what we may think of as small things are probably the Big Things. There are many, many things to be grateful for, but these are the main five in my book.

1. Home and family–so easy to take for granted–but my ordinary life is quite wonderful.

2. A church home: Isn’t it wonderful (to borrow a phrase) to have some place to go “where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came”?

3. Work: I am personally so grateful to have a job that I actually like and where I feel I am making a small difference.

4. Health–One of those things that I don’t really appreciate until I am sick or my knee hurts–so it takes some effort to think, hey, I feel pretty good today!

5. An inquiring mind: It’s so important to exercise this gift every day along with that not-so-athletic body! And there is also this:

“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

So in these waning days of November as we ready ourselves for the festive national holiday of Thanksgiving, let us actually give thanks!

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November 25, 2013

How shall we love thee, holy hidden being?*

by chuckofish

I bought these perfectly delightful Turkey cookies after church on Sunday from the Youth Group who was fundraising for some worthy cause. Aren’t they special?

In other news, I was surprised to see that we now have cushions in our pews. Last week we did not.

Taken with my iPhone, excuse me.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and so does our rector.

We had our leaves blown and vacuumed on Friday. I’m sure my husband is very thankful that he did not have to do it. The yard looks great, although the leaves continue to fall.

Most of the weekend was spent puttering around the old manse, readying it for daughter #2’s arrival on Tuesday.

While cleaning off my desk, I was reminded that on this day four years ago one of my dearest friends died suddenly. We were supposed to have lunch that day but she canceled in the morning because she wasn’t feeling well. Later in the day she went to the hospital. We exchanged a few emails. I was shocked to find out the next day that she had died that night at home in her sleep.

Irene was two years ahead of me in school from kindergarten through high school. We weren’t friends until later when we were both active in the same church. She was a successful realtor when she heeded the call and took off for divinity school in Virginia. She was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church and served in a variety of places. Her last assignment was to my Grace Church. At the time we had an interim who, to be honest, tried our Christian souls. We on the vestry tried very conscientiously to work with him, but then at a vestry meeting, he announced he was leaving (the next day) and that the Bishop had appointed Irene to step in. I was happy to speak up and say I had known her practically all my life and that she was a wonderful person and that we should be thrilled to have her. Everyone breathed a sigh of collective relief. (Several people actually told me that afterwards.)

And Irene truly was a blessing to our church, healing many wounds and reassuring us that we really were okay and not the bad Episcopalians the other guy had inferred we were on a regular basis. For the next 18 months, she guided us through the search process for a new rector who started in June of 2009. She died in November at age 55.

The lesson here is that you just don’t know when anyone might suddenly be removed from your life. So tell everyone you care about that you love them on a regular basis. The last time I met with Irene for coffee I said, “I love you, Irene” when we parted, and I am glad I did. Now every day when I drive by Starbucks on Lindbergh Road, I think of Irene.

* Hymn 573 by Laurence Housman (1865–1959)

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November 13, 2013

The moon’s a balloon*

by chuckofish

The lunar phase on November 13, 2013 is Waxing Gibbous. The moon is growing bigger.

Take a look this afternoon. A waxing gibbous moon appears high in the east at sunset. It’s more than half-lighted, but less than full.

When I flew to New York last week, it was at sunset. We flew over the clouds in the dark. The lights of the cities twinkled below. Then I looked out the window and there was the big dipper (Ursa Major)!

The moon was a sliver then. What a beautiful world!

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 (KJV)

* e.e. cummings

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November 4, 2013

Who are these like stars appearing*

by chuckofish

Sunday was All Saints’ Sunday when we Episcopalians remember “all the saints” –and by saints I mean that “glorious band” of Christians who have gone before us, leading by example. Protestants generally regard all true Christian believers as saints.

William Farel, John Calvin, Théodore de Bèze, and John Knox in Reformation Park, Geneva

We are reminded on All Saints” Sunday to think of those saints who have influenced our lives. We all have them, starting usually, if we are lucky, with our mothers. I believe in God–Father, Son and Holy Ghost–chiefly because she told me about Him. Furthermore, I followed her example and her advice to remember that “this is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Of course, there have been teachers, ministers, friends who throughout my life have supported and guided me. Some I’ve written about here, but their names wouldn’t mean anything to you, so I won’t make a list. (But a list is a good idea.)

Frederick Beuchner, however, is a saint you have probably heard of. I am happy to say that I have heard him preach and even shaken his hand. I brought my three children to hear him and they too have shaken his hand.

I have also heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu preach and shaken his hand.

I went to a Billy Graham “revival” and that, too, was an awesome experience. There were thousands of people present, so I did not get to shake his hand.

All three men are saints in my book and their words–both spoken and written–have helped me along on my journey.

I feel that I need to include a woman here in my personal army of saints–how about Jan Karon? She has done what is nearly impossible: written popular fiction with a palatable Christian message that is not “Christian literature” per se. She has sold millions–you go, girl!

It has never been an easy thing to be a saint out in the world. One might argue, today especially. They are not feeding us literally to the lions, but metaphorically, it happens every day.

What God says…is ‘The life you save is the life you lose.’ in other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself, and only a life given away for love’s sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of human wisdom, he was a Perfect Fool. And if you think you can follow him without making something like the same kind of a fool yourself, you are laboring under not a cross but a delusion.

There are two kinds of fools in the world: damned fools, and what Saint Paul calls ‘fools for Christ’s sake’ (I Cor. 4:10).

–Frederick Buechner

Our dedication to Christ may sometimes make us look like fools, but I like the company.

*Hymn 286, The Hymnal, 1982

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October 17, 2013

Play the man

by chuckofish

Yesterday was the day we Episcopalians remember Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley who were burned at the stake by Queen “Bloody” Mary in England in 1555. (Archbishop Thomas Cranmer is also remembered on October 16, but he was actually executed later.)

When Catholic Mary became Queen of England one of her first acts was to arrest Bishop Ridley, Bishop Latimer, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. She insisted that the best way to deal with heresy was to burn as many heretics as possible. In the course of a five-year reign, she lost all the English holdings on the continent of Europe, she lost the affection of her people, and she lost any chance of a peaceful religious settlement in England. Of the nearly three hundred persons burned by her orders, the most famous are the Oxford Martyrs, commemorated yesterday.

The scholar Nicholas Ridley had been a chaplain to King Henry VIII and was Bishop of London under his son Edward. He was a preacher beloved of his congregation. Hugh Latimer also became an influential preacher during King Edward’s reign. He was an earnest student of the Bible, and as Bishop of Worcester he encouraged the Scriptures be known in English by the people. His sermons emphasized that men should serve the Lord with a true heart and inward affection, not just with outward show.

When Ridley was asked if he believed the pope was heir to the authority of Peter as the foundation of the Church, he replied that the church was not built on any man but on the truth Peter confessed — that Christ was the Son of God. Ridley said he could not honor the pope in Rome since the papacy was seeking its own glory, not the glory of God. Neither Ridley nor Latimer could accept the Roman Catholic mass as a sacrifice of Christ. Latimer told the commissioners, “Christ made one oblation and sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, and that a perfect sacrifice; neither needeth there to be, nor can there be, any other propitiatory sacrifice.”

For their heresy they were burned at the stake on October 16, 1555. As the flames rose around them, Latimer encouraged Ridley, “Be of good comfort, Mr. Ridley, and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace, in England, as I trust never shall be put out.”

Martyrs’ monument in Oxford.

Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, that, like thy servants Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

I’m sorry I did not remember the Oxford Martyrs yesterday. Today is a good day to do so as well. Lest we forget.

“They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. But then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

(Historical info from Christianity.com)

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October 10, 2013

Waste not

by chuckofish

“…I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house. So I have spent almost all the daylight hours in the open air.”

~Nathaniel Hawthorne, 10th October 1842

The view from my back door in the morning

The view from my backdoor yesterday morning

I am with Hawthorne all the way. Unfortunately I do not have the option of staying outside all day. I will, however, take a walk around the block if work allows. Yesterday I had a meeting on my flyover campus and so I got to walk around. It was nice. I mean look at that sky!

And when I get home today I will attack some more vines–strenuous yard work which bears visible results is good for the soul, right? But sometimes I feel like Shane and that stump.

And, yes…

We won the NLDS! Just look at the wing span on old Adam Wainwright! Onward and upward, Cardinals! Bring on the Dodgers!

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October 7, 2013

Weekend update

by chuckofish

On Saturday my friends and I embarked on an autumn adventure. We ventured down to the Historic Shaw Art Fair. The Art Fair itself is not historic, but the neighborhood is. The idea for the last 20 years has been to showcase the beautiful neighborhood by providing a “high-caliber cultural event”. We are always up for one of those.

Because Carla was driving, we found the bomb spot and parked right outside the Missouri Botanical Garden. Awesome.

It was overcast, but pleasant. There were reputedly 135 artists from across the country.

Plus “entertainment”.

It was fun, but I always feel bad about not buying something from all the well-meaning and earnest artists. I usually prefer my artwork to be vintage. C’est la vie. Afterwards we went to Jilly’s for lunch. I did not have a cupcake, but the non-dessert food was yummy.

When I got home I went over to my favorite Pumpkin Patch at the Methodist Church and picked out a couple of pumpkins.

I love pumpkins, don’t you?

Here is how my front porch “vignette” looks:

We planted some grass a few weeks ago and had part of a bale of hay left.

I know you’re impressed.

I was the second lector at church yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised to read one of my favorite scripture passages from the second letter of Paul to Timothy. It includes my personal mantra:

For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but one of power and love and self-control. (RSV)

Of course, it was the NRSV so it read a little differently: for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

The KJV says: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

In this instance I like the RSV best. It is so much more personal, speaking to “you”, which seems like what Paul would have been doing in his letter to Timothy.

How was your weekend?

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dual personalities

Tag: spirituality

January 1, 2014

Face to the front

by chuckofish

December 31, 2013

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come*

by chuckofish

December 2, 2013

You know what time it is

by chuckofish

November 26, 2013

Ponder anew: counting our blessings

by chuckofish

November 25, 2013

How shall we love thee, holy hidden being?*

by chuckofish

November 13, 2013

The moon’s a balloon*

by chuckofish

November 4, 2013

Who are these like stars appearing*

by chuckofish

October 17, 2013

Play the man

by chuckofish

October 10, 2013

Waste not

by chuckofish

October 7, 2013

Weekend update

by chuckofish